The PDF format, as Denny has mentioned, is brilliantly convenient/cost-effective from a business standpoint, but is also pirate-friendly, even if it means somebody innocuously sends their friend a PDF to build a village townhouse/ wall section, or whatever. This "Napster" think is understandable on a certain level, but obviously, lines must be drawn. Encryption of files would create a mess, and once files are unlocked, they're free to "float", so to speak. Any ideas on solutions? Obviously, going strictly CD-ROM would kill sales and stunt the company's growth. Buyer incentives linked to past purchases, maybe? Of course, even those would eventually bleed out due to unscrupulous bastards, but if somebody laid down the cash at least once, they might be less inclined to pirate. A Catch-22, I guess...
Off Topic/ Another Thread, but this might also be a stumbling block as far as WizKids/WOTC are concerned. WOTC created foldup terrain, then buried the links when the MapFolios came out, if I'm not mistaken. You can still find them (although they're geared towards Chainmail, and suck in general compared to WWG), but it seems to reinforce the "hardcopy or NO-copy" mentality in terms of sales accountablity...

One approach to the piracy issue is to watermark the files. There's two different types of watermark one can use:

- Put a *visible* mark on every page on a piece of whitespace (this is what DTRPG does, AFAIK). Could be anything from a code number to the name and creditcard info of the person buying the set. There are some commercial tools available that do this automatically - the cheapest simply put the mark on a fixed position on each page. Dedicated hackers could simply go through the entire document and remove the mark everywhere (this has actually happened with some 100+ page pdfs!)

- Mix an *invisible* mark into the graphics. The easiest version of this simply changes the least significant bit of a select few pixel values. Compare with the original image, and you get that many bits of information, which could be used to store the buyer info, etc. More sophisticated versions store the information throughout the entire image in a sort of "holographic" fashion, so you could take a piece of the page, or even distort it slightly, and still recover the encoded message. Tradeoffs between size of the message, ability to withstand graphical manipulation, and obtrusiveness of the watermark apply, of course...

Best solution as I see it is registration/suscription & support. If someone buys something, they get to download it as it is updated, and in all future formats. If Set X is later bundled as part of the Set XYZ Extravaganza as a discount package, the previous buyer of Set X should get a significant discount on the mega-bundle, ideally whatever percentage Set X is of the three.

The other thing to do to discourage piracy is to keep an item continually available at a reasonable price.

One approach to the piracy issue is to watermark the files. There's two different types of watermark one can use:

- Mix an *invisible* mark into the graphics. The easiest version of this simply changes the least significant bit of a select few pixel values. Compare with the original image, and you get that many bits of information, which could be used to store the buyer info, etc. More sophisticated versions store the information throughout the entire image in a sort of "holographic" fashion, so you could take a piece of the page, or even distort it slightly, and still recover the encoded message. Tradeoffs between size of the message, ability to withstand graphical manipulation, and obtrusiveness of the watermark apply, of course...

Some Adult picture pay sites do this. If someone releases it, they go after the person (the username they log on with is hidden in layers of the picture). but this does not necessarily stop piracy. It makes it easier to go after someone legally, but the new defense in this is "I got a virus and they stole my stuff". I subscribe to various technical mailing lists and this seems to be "the defense of the day" strategy. At the moment, most juries believe this defense, but the legal costs to the person can make them think twice next time.

I do not know if this will translate to PDF. The other graphics are in JPG or GIF or PNG.

Too bad Denny can't hook up with RIA, they seem to like crashing peoples piracy parties with a vengence.

CCotD'

When I was growing up, I was told I could be anything I wanted... so I became an asshole!

Best solution as I see it is registration/suscription & support. If someone buys something, they get to download it as it is updated, and in all future formats.

Not to mention giving them access to extras that come out for that product, such as *kitbashes*. There was soem talk along those lines when the new website was being rolled out, but it was deemed technically infeasible (for now at least) to integrate the customer tracking sufficiently to pull this off. Hope this option is still being considered...

If you can make people decide that they gain more from getting the product legally, you've won the battle.

mcclaud, it was mentioned in one of Denny's replies in another thread, and it got me thinking about ways to combat the situation. I think buyer incentive/kitbash incentives would at least discourage piracy, although the watermark idea might work as well. The problem is not necessarily files popping up where they shouldn't, it's the fact that there's very little you can do to regulate any sort of uncontrolled dissemination once files reach the end-user.

I have no idea if this is possible with PDFs or not, but take Bioware for example. You can purchase premium modules for the classic PC game Neverwinter Nights, and download it. In order to play the module though, you have to log in to your account on the net and it does a quick double check to ensure that your account has permission to run that module.

It's certainly inconvenient... but if it's possible... it might help.

I do find it immensely amusing that the porn industry actually produces some great websites, with very clever designs and marketing. I haven't seen any of them past the login page... though I'm curious (obviously not just about the coding *grin*). There is a lot to be learned from surfing these sites... just make sure you run Ad-Aware or some other spyware catching software once you are done.

I do find it immensely amusing that the porn industry actually produces some great websites, with very clever designs and marketing. I haven't seen any of them past the login page... though I'm curious (obviously not just about the coding *grin*). There is a lot to be learned from surfing these sites... just make sure you run Ad-Aware or some other spyware catching software once you are done.

Arabin

I believe I read somewhere that the porn industry are actually fairly big in pushing technology. I guess they're usually among the early adopters of new tech and are always looking for new stuff.

Well, the customer tracking has been setup before on other sites. While it is not great to give as example a non-working site, www.alexlit.com has/had a number of my short stories for sale, and for numerous years it was set up so that when you went there, you could download any story you bought from them as many times as you wanted in as many formats as you wanted. New PDA with new annoying format? Just download a new copy.

Unfortunately, the purchase/download mechanism is down right now, and has been for a while, but I just logged in to my author account and can report that the tracking mechanism is firmly in place. All the stories I purchased, including of course my own, are still firmly on my bookshelf, even if I can't download them.

I know that Dave Howell the owner/founder of the company has been leasing the translation engine Alexlit devised to other ebook companies, and Alexlit does have good tracking/bookshelf software which might be something for Denny to look into.

That would be great. As much as I love WWG terrain and the company as a whole... I really hate the way the downloads are limited both by number of downloads and also by time. I can understand limiting the number of downloads but the time limit is very frustrating.

I know Denny is always open to you PMing him if you have a need to redownload, but it's an extra step for the customer, and it pulls him away from doing what he loves... designing the terrain in the first place.

Another example is Oblivion with their new initiative of charging for "premium" downloads. I don't object to the idea like so many others do, though allegedly the quality is not really any better than the mod community is developing. The main objection for me is the poor execution.

1) Apparently you only have 48 hours to download your purchase.
2) The servers they are using are $#@%! You will be lucky if you can successfully download the installer in the time alloted.
3) If you do download, the installer doesn't always work right.
4) The posts crying out for help on the official forums are not responded to.

These things combined have put me off purchasing the mods until they sort themselves out. I know a lot of people did pay, and ended up having to get a pirated version anyway because the officially purchased copy wouldn't work.

What about a password? I don't know it is actually possible but maybe. When you buy from WWG you have to login to the store first right? What if everytime you open the file you had to enter your original email and password that you used to buy the product with. If it is even feasible would it help at all? Just a simple question from a hick in the sticks

I have no idea if this is possible with PDFs or not, but take Bioware for example. You can purchase premium modules for the classic PC game Neverwinter Nights, and download it. In order to play the module though, you have to log in to your account on the net and it does a quick double check to ensure that your account has permission to run that module.

DracRTC wrote:

What about a password? I don't know it is actually possible but maybe. When you buy from WWG you have to login to the store first right? What if everytime you open the file you had to enter your original email and password that you used to buy the product with.

Adobe's DRM system for protecting PDF's works something like that. You can only open the file on a specific set of computers, and the software checks back with the server at adobe to see if this was a legitimate copy.

However, if you do a search on DRM here, at ENWorld, or at a number of other RPG websites, you'll see that there is a LOT of bad blood about DRM! People really hate this approach, to the point where a few people started boycotting any company using DRM to protect their PDF's. This stuff really hit the fan a while back when DriveThruRPG opened up and used DRM on all their products - they've since moved to watermarking, largely due to consumer pressure.

Suffice it to say that I don't think it would be very popular if WWG were to move in that direction...

mcclaud, it was mentioned in one of Denny's replies in another thread, and it got me thinking about ways to combat the situation. I think buyer incentive/kitbash incentives would at least discourage piracy, although the watermark idea might work as well. The problem is not necessarily files popping up where they shouldn't, it's the fact that there's very little you can do to regulate any sort of uncontrolled dissemination once files reach the end-user.

I agree with you. I just was wondering what brought it up, is all.

I now see there's a thread in the Customer Service part about CD sales of materials over eBay.

The hardest part about piracy in the computer industry is that the better the anti-piracy method you use, the more invasive and pain in the ass it is. Reverse it, and the less anti-piracy method you use, the easier it is for dedicated pirates to circumvent it and spread the software for free, anyway.

I think the best anti-piracy method is to offer your product at an agreeable rate, with superior customer service and great quality. If you endear people to your product, they feel less inclined to pirate it to other people (since they want you to make profit to make more products).

Piracy is such a big problem in the computer and RPG world because both of those products often come from large, immobile corporations that overcharge you for their products while decreasing the quality of their future products, thus no one feels bad about illegally sharing the products with others.

Moderator of the Battle-forum.com.

Word of Caution: The members of my forum are very xenophobic and very vulgar. Almost like Something Awful.

I think most anti-piracy measures don't work, even though I wish they did. The best utilize shame - the trailer I've seen at the movies showing all the everyday people that go into making a film, talking about the impact of pirating DVDs really nails it.

I've come to the conclusion that "casual pirates" are the minority. The folks that do the most damage are the ones that enjoy it, get a rush from it, derive satisfcation and identity from it - and they're not really going to be stopped, regardless of the method. They'll break it. Its what they do for fun (or sometimes, even for a living). Most of them wouldn't buy your product anyways.

The "casual pirates" - the guy who unthinkingly gives his a friend his backup CD and says "try this" - HE is the guy you want to combat. He (and his friend) are the ones that might be a customer, if the saw a face instead of a product. They're the ones to target with shame. Denny's "piracy kills small businesses" message is a step in the right direction. I think it ought to be plastered everywhere. Even things like a README file in each product that says, "If you bought this product, we thank you. And if you didn't, why don't you just come steal food off my table? Its the same thing."

Ultimately, you can't impress them with your pricing if they don't buy it, and you can't impress someone with your service if they don't use. If you can work to make them aware that what they're doing affects real, honest-to-god people, then you have a shot. A certain element won't care; but then, nothing will matter to them. But a number of folks when presented with what the reality of piracy is, might actually stop for a second and think about what they're really doing, which is what you really want.

When you can't run anymore, you crawl. When you can't crawl, find someone to carry you.

I have no idea if this is possible with PDFs or not, but take Bioware for example. You can purchase premium modules for the classic PC game Neverwinter Nights, and download it. In order to play the module though, you have to log in to your account on the net and it does a quick double check to ensure that your account has permission to run that module.

DracRTC wrote:

What about a password? I don't know it is actually possible but maybe. When you buy from WWG you have to login to the store first right? What if everytime you open the file you had to enter your original email and password that you used to buy the product with.

Adobe's DRM system for protecting PDF's works something like that. You can only open the file on a specific set of computers, and the software checks back with the server at adobe to see if this was a legitimate copy.

However, if you do a search on DRM here, at ENWorld, or at a number of other RPG websites, you'll see that there is a LOT of bad blood about DRM! People really hate this approach, to the point where a few people started boycotting any company using DRM to protect their PDF's. This stuff really hit the fan a while back when DriveThruRPG opened up and used DRM on all their products - they've since moved to watermarking, largely due to consumer pressure.

Suffice it to say that I don't think it would be very popular if WWG were to move in that direction...

No, I didn't mean having a password that checked back with the original server, but if there was a way to encode the username and password of the original buyer into the file itself. I download all my purchases on one computer (used for internet and computer games) then transfer them to my laptop and print, plan etc. on that one (I use my laptop for all of my RPG and TTWG planning as well as working on my own creations). I have never gone online with my laptop and never intend to. I just use both of my computers for differant things.

Problem with that, though, is that once you start flooding the public with the message, they become apathetic to the problem. Even moreso if the majority of the industry doesn't exactly put out a quality product at a decent price with good customer service.

An example would be movie piracy. We all know it happens. Most of us know someone who does it. However, since we're constantly bombarded by the message, "Movie piracy destroys the movie industry," we tend to stop listening to the message and shrug. It becomes noise.

It also doesn't help that the movie industry tends to put out products of poor quality, so much so we're not hip to paying full price for something when we can't be sure it's a decent product (without sampling, word of mouth and some sort of assurance). Add to the fact that movies are sometimes overpriced for their content and customer service (clean facilities, nice ushers, decent complaint handling, etc), no one feels bad when people pirate movies. Even right out of the theater.

The opposite of that example would be Denny's product. How many of us who are right here right now really pirate his product? Almost none of us (I'd like to say none of us, but I'm not sure)? Why is that?

Because we enjoy the product, want to see more of it, care about Denny losing money by carelessly distributing it free (and illegally) over the Net, and have respect for the company. If none of us felt this way, we'd have spread the files all over the Internet to everyone we knew not caring.

Part of combating piracy is spreading the message and education, yes. But part of it is the industry has to earn the respect of the people in the market to keep them from illegally distributing the product. Most malicious pirates will avoid hurting the companies that they have respect for. Most casual pirates will be aware of their piracy if it's a company they like and try to avoid it at all costs.

You don't have that respect, no one cares about the damage they do to you or your company. That's why there's so much piracy in our society - there's no respect for the people they steal from.

Moderator of the Battle-forum.com.

Word of Caution: The members of my forum are very xenophobic and very vulgar. Almost like Something Awful.

As a side note on the movie piracy issue, our studio just spent some time in NYC... One of the students picked up a street copy of the new version of "The Hills Have Eyes". While I initially only grumbled about it, the depth of the problem didn't hit me until I heard an NPR report on the whole issue about two weeks later. Most of the street-level pirated movies are controlled by cartels involved in so much other illegal crap, it would make your head spin... We're talking drugs, money laundering, and even slave-trade... It opened my eyes to where the proverbial dollar spent ultimately lands... Is it really worth seeing a cheap-quality camcorder capture for five bucks before the DVD lands?

Boiled down, it sounds like you're saying that if you make a crappy product, people are more likely to steal from you. If you make a good product, they're not. I can't agree with that premise at all.

People become inured to the "sky is falling" message, for certain (cuz you can't get away from it, it seems). But thats not the right message to send. It doesn't resonate (if it did, the left would have won more in the last few elections). The movie trailers I've seen that I noticed don't say "movie piracy destroys the movie industry" - instead they show real people saying, "when you pirate DVDs, you're stealing from us". There is a big difference there.

I work in the software industry. I've seen it time and time again - the best products are the ones that get pirated, not the worst. Very few seem to mind screwing Microsoft, ever. Or Adobe, or various other industry giants. Word and Excel are good products. So is Acrobat, and Photoshop. But some little company that created a small POS shareware app, THATS the company that the IT department decides to spend the $30 for the license. Why? Because they're human; they're real. Microsoft? Thats a huge corporation that made a gangly geek into maybe the single richest man in human history. (As a side note, this among many other things is one reason I prefer Open Source.)

Why is it (we suspect) that all of the regulars here have bought our products, not pirated them? As great as WWG's products are, I don't think that is the reason. Beyond the fact that most gamers understand how tenous the industry is anymore (which is in part, the human factor - I think its one reason Palladium has gotten the support it has), I think that simple shame is enough. Joe Average isn't going to spend a lot of time on these boards if he didn't pay for them. Not with a guilty conscience, knowing that he basically stole directly from Denny and Paul and Matt, all of whom are real people, with real problems. Denny's computer broke down, Paul just moved to be at WWG central - they're real folks, with real issues.

Piracy is a criminal behavior. It breaks the laws of society. To do that, people have to convince themselves it is okay. And the first, easiest rationale is "it doesn't really hurt anyone". Its why allow ourselves to speed, why we do march madness and superbowl pools, why we sneak into the movie theater, why we smoke dope. And its why we pirate software/DVDs/music/etc. And in reality, a lot of times, it doesn't really hurt anyone. But in the case we're discussing, piracy has a very real effect. But a face on that effect, show that it really does hurt someone, and that easy rationalization is gone. Poof. And now Joe Average has to either come up with a better rationalization for his criminal behavior, or he has to stop it.

I guess all that long winded babble really boils down to is that I don't think how good a product is thought to be is the basis for piracy. I think - for Joe Average who is the guy you're really concerned with pirating (the "real" pirates weren't ever going to pay for your product regardless) - the key is getting him to realize the real, human impact of pirating products. Big corporations (Microsoft, movies, etc) suffer this not because their products aren't good, but because its hard to put a human face and see the negative conseqences to that face.

When you can't run anymore, you crawl. When you can't crawl, find someone to carry you.

The trouble with DRM, aside from the hideous security loopholes and lies that just happened with the Sony music disks (check www.boingboing.net for a whole history), is that it's a pain in the ass. For example, I have songs I legitimately purchased from iTunes. I'm allowed, by the iTunes license, to have them on five machines. Nevermind the fact that I have three computers of my own and six more that I use occasionally, they have to be authorized to use my iTunes account. iTunes tells me to deauthorize a computer before I sell it.

Whoops! I upgrade my version of Windows. Suddenly my computer counts as a new computer, and the overwritten operating system (which no longer exists) was never deauthorized. One of the other computers which had my iTunes account set up through it suddenly had the hard drive fry out. Yes, replacing that counts as another new computer. And so on.

iTunes has set it up so you can contact them once a year and press the cosmic reset button and deathorize all your computers so you can start fresh, but this is likewise a pain in the butt.

Contrast this with my non-DRM cds. I can put any of those on my iPod without iTunes getting bitchy. This is why all of my "legitimate iTunes purchases" were introductory offers, freebies and things I got off Slurpee cups. I used them to get a few iTunes exclusives, but beyond that, forget it. The fidelity isn't good enough to warrant the price, and even if it were, the DRM is nothing I'll deal with it except for freebies and exclusives.

The person who's gotten web-sales the closest to right, IMHO, is Emily Autumn:

She has free tracks on her website, including even a whole free album if you are willing to explore the (fun) Enchant subsite, but the albums that are for sale? You order the physical real-world CDs to be sent to you and you automatically get an email with a code that lets you download the MP3s immediately.

Similar things have been done with fonts by Dave Nalle at the Scriptorium:

(Full disclosure: I designed a font that Dave is redesigning and will have for sale in a while, after a Danish publisher approached me and asked for more work done with it than I had time or current skill to do.)

What I'd really like to see from WorldWorks, and would add a lot of value, would be some system where you could order a printout-and-CD set as was done with Chunky Dungeons but as part of the same order get a PDF copy mailed immediately. Yes, you can burn your own CD, but one with a professionally printed label (or even nicely computer printed label) makes things feel a lot more concrete.

Respect is generated by quality, quantity, timeliness and interaction.

I largely suspect people don't care about piracy vs Microstupid because that's exactly how they feel about the company - it's a giant corporation that, while putting out one or two good products, sucks. It sucks addressing complaints, it sucks at not repeatedly being the best that's out there, it sucks because it overcharges you for everything, and it sucks because it tries to rail smaller people out of business. Therefore, a lot of people don't care if they're running a pirated version of Windows or handing them out because Microsoft doesn't need any more money for being a bad egg in the market. And they'll tell regular Joe who works at Microsoft to make a living that they suck for working there (or that they feel sorry for them working there, but that's not their problem). That's the public opinion.

No one respects Microsoft.

The small businesses we respect are lesser targets because we know them and they know us. They try hard to please us and earn our respect. Guilt also arises from respect for the person who is running the business. Linux has been gaining this respect for years. The product is good, and the price is respectable to NIL.

I'll give you another example - Blizzard.

Blizzard, up until 2002, could claim that they suffered the least amount of software piracy in the US. I don't think that was because they had decent anti-piracy (I know that for a fact I can overcome their silly user code block and get it to run on Battlenet), or that people didn't want their product. People spent their money on Blizzard games because they liked the games and respected the company. I have a PC Gamer magazine right here where they ask a well-known former hacker why he or his friends didn't pirate StarCraft and make a killing. He says, in a lot of words, that they wanted more games like StarCraft and to pirate the game would have killed the company. They had some respect for Blizzard.

Today, I know three guys who make a killing hacking WoW and pirating stuff for the MMORPG. I know why they do it - they think Blizzard went from good to suck because they basically overcharge you for everything, ruin good game lines, and Blizzard "doesn't need more money." They have absolutely no respect for Blizzard. Nor do I, for that matter, after the quality of their products went downhill. I don't hack them, but I don't play WoW either. But I could care less if these three people hack WoW, because my respect for Blizzard is so low.

I work for a giant software/credit card company. I care about all you little people and try to protect you, but I hardly care about IT companies or software companies anymore. If a big company goes down the crapper due to piracy, it's because they did little to keep the respect of their clients. Clients make your company. They'll report the piracy when they see it IF they care about you. They won't do a darn thing if they don't. You have to have respect of the people to make them care about what their doing with your products.

As my boss says, "You cannot educate or teach anyone anything if you don't have the respect of the people you're trying to teach. They just won't listen, no matter what is at stake."

[EDIT]

Robby, I'm not arguing that educating the public isn't a good way to stop piracy. It's a core fundamental in that regard. But it's also up to the companies to do the right thing and keep the respect of the clients and outsiders to keep them from doing things that hurt their business. Too many companies try to claim that piracy has nothing to do with THEM and everything to do with EVERYONE ELSE. That's a very shallow viewpoint of the issue. IT people seem to always feel that it's not their problem, it's the world outside of IT that messes everything up.

If the IT world actually did something to boost the confidence of our end-users, we'd have less piracy, I guarantee it. There is honor among thieves at various levels, and respect is what keeps that honor. Of course, yeah, they validate an excuse in their minds, but respect is the boundary that stops them from hurting each other. Pirates don't attack people who do things cheaply, respectfully and put effort into quality, because they don't feel the need to. They do, however, feel the compulsion to go after companies who need to be "taught a lesson" or "don't deserve any respect." People will react if they feel like they respect the company being pirated.

Putting a face of who's affected is just one step. Not the only step, but the first one. Now, build your reputation and get the respect of your clients and the rest of the people out there.

Denny will suffer less piracy as long as he keeps up the respect of his clients. I will report any piracy I see of WWG products because I like the quality and the hard work done by the employees, and I respect their patience and their candor when listening to me rant for 8000 paragraphs.

I also respect everyone on this forum who reads my terribly long and boring posts, too.

Moderator of the Battle-forum.com.

Word of Caution: The members of my forum are very xenophobic and very vulgar. Almost like Something Awful.

I was reading this thread last night and slept on it I think the opinions are valid on all sides. It is equal parts "brand respect" and ignorance to the "human face" behind a small business that might be affected by piracy.

I don't think I'll ever institute any Draconian copy protection schemes to our PDF's. At the end of the day it just isn't worth the hassle to myself or the end user. People who want the product for free will always find a way around those schemes. Beyond that I would much rather give users the ability to kitbash our products and offer those bashes here. Hopefully the availability of those "bashes" at the WorldWorks store will draw piraters over to the site and give them a better understanding of who we are. Once here they might finally understand that we are a small business that desperately needs their support to continue doing what we do.

I have had a few e-mails and messages from "reformed piraters" who have found our products for free elsewhere. These rare breed creatures actually turned the corner and ended up being a WWG supporters. So for this small group of people our philosophy actually worked. I do want to stress however that these brave souls are in the minority. While it's hard to say with any certainty at one point we estimated a yearly loss of between 60% to 70% of earnings due to piracy. That was based on the average saturation of our products on sharing networks of various sorts and sizes. WorldWorks is a favorite dirty little sin in the average GameMasters arsenal of tools. It is simple apathy that keeps these people from supporting us. They know that it damages our bottom line but if they keep themselves at a distance they simply don't care. I think the common rational amongst most WWG piraters goes a little something like this; "Well, I only need this bit of terrain for my next game so downloading it for free won't make that big of a difference.". Of course that logic falls apart when they download the entire WorldWorks archive for free to get at that one element they want. They then use the rest of our terrain for future games while maintaining a state of willful ignorance not realizing how damaging it is to us.

I have a pretty clear understanding of just how "available" our products are over a wide swath of piracy and sharing mechanisms. This is largely thanks to many e-mails over the years from dedicated fans of our work. The picture is pretty ugly and it really doesn't speak well of a generation that thinks file-sharing is normal and acceptable behaviour. There is a profound disconnect between mega-corporate software producers and the little guy just trying to get by. We are all the same in the eyes of the modern day pirate. The last page of the 'Beginners Guide' sums up my feelings on this issue: http://worldworksgames.com/store/index. ... ucts_id=13

To be perfectly honest, if I had the capital and I thought I could make it fly in the retail market I would make a move away from PDF's and into physical, tangible terrain products. Our deal with WhiteWolf was VERY close to making that a reality and it would have been a massive shift in direction for WorldWorks (for the better). Fortunately for the pirates and lovers of PDF's I don't think the market is stable enough for this kind of retail product (nor will it ever be if I can barely keep PDF's afloat).

Let's put it this way, if everyone who used WorldWorks terrain actually paid for it we'd be millionaires (or close to it)...no joke. Ask around at your next CON and you'll be surprised how many people know about us. Now if only that translated into an increase in earnings. Until a viable solution comes along we'll just have to keep slogging along and paying the bills. That's the best we can do at this stage.

While I can see the attraction to moving away from PDFs and into pre-printed cardstock sales... I have to say that I am very happy that is not the direction you are currently going, and hope that you are not forced to do so.

I have seen other companies produce interesting cardstock in pre-printed format... but I don't buy it, no matter how good it is. Cardstock will get damaged, and I love being able to reprint a replacement piece... or easily build a second version making a few changes. With pre-printed you are way too limited.

Sorry to hear the White Wolf deal didn't go through, but selfishly, I can't help being a little glad since it kept you producing PDFs.

While I can see the attraction to moving away from PDFs and into pre-printed cardstock sales... I have to say that I am very happy that is not the direction you are currently going, and hope that you are not forced to do so.

I have seen other companies produce interesting cardstock in pre-printed format... but I don't buy it, no matter how good it is. Cardstock will get damaged, and I love being able to reprint a replacement piece... or easily build a second version making a few changes. With pre-printed you are way too limited.

Sorry to hear the White Wolf deal didn't go through, but selfishly, I can't help being a little glad since it kept you producing PDFs.

Arabin

Our product with WhiteWolf would not have been based on cardstock but rather a new kind of plastic. The product itself would have been durable, cheap and looked just as spiffy as our cardstock designs. I can't say much more than that other than it was really a cool product which was very painful to let go.

In that case, I'm really sorry that it didn't work out. Perhaps there is another company that could be approached with a similar kind of proposal?

Arabin

The terrain system I created for WhiteWolf is unfortunately completely out of my control. They own all associated intellectual property rights although I did everything I could to maintain some measure of control over the concept (my contract skills were sorely lacking at the time ). There is a VERY SMALL glimmer of hope there in that they may still pursue the concept in future. It was a MAJOR investment for them and I really don't blame them for getting cold feet. The market was in flux and their backers were a bit gun shy of the concept given Wizkids failure with their plastic dungeon. Our concept was vastly more cool however and it was just as expansive and modular as WWG's cardstock terrain but "un-pirate-able".

I've been mulling over a new concept that takes a different approach to the same kind of concept. Maybe one day an opportunity will present itself and I can pursue that end of things again.

I have had a few e-mails and messages from "reformed piraters" who have found our products for free elsewhere. These rare breed creatures actually turned the corner and ended up being a WWG supporters. So for this small group of people our philosophy actually worked. I do want to stress however that these brave souls are in the minority.

I'll openly admit that I fall into that minority. I stumbled onto the WWG site before there were any sample products, and I mentioned to a friend that I was curious to see how the assembly worked before putting down the money. Trying to be helpful, he found some of the files on the internet and gave them to me. I took a look at the files and decided at the time that it really wouldn't fit what I needed. I didn't even print any of it, instead waiting for the DW door sample to be released (I was one of the vocal people asking for samples at the time). I did print the sample, and it confirmed that DW didn't meet my needs at the time (I needed something a little more flexible). Later on, the same person stumbled upon a copy of GR, he gave me a copy which I then looked at and decided I liked. I pulled in and built the Alter sample from the WWG site; it confirmed the quality to me, and I immediately went to RPGNow and bought GR and CD. I've been buying WWG stuff ever since.

I do have a weird sense of ethics though; while I have frequently looked at DLed PDFs, I refuse to actually use anything that I didn't pay for. To me, in many ways this is similar to going to a book store and flipping through a book before deciding whether to buy it. If it is something that is of interest, I have no problem putting down the money to buy a legitamate copy. If I decide that it is something that I wouldn't use, I don't buy it. I'm the same way with board games and such, I am very hesitant to buy a game that I have never tried to play before.

This carries over into my decisions on where to buy things too. I'm good friends with the owners of a FLGS, and I enjoy hanging out down there and trying games and looking at the new releases. When I do decide to buy something, I spend my money there instead of ordering online through one of the large online discount retailers. In my mind, the extra amount I am paying is the cost of being able to really look at the product, and I will willingly pay for that opportunity. Likewise, I buy from WWG directly instead of through DTRPG or RPGNOW, so I can maximize my support of Denny and the rest of the crew. I once heard another FLGS owner say "pay where you play", and since I like to "play" on the WWG boards, this is where I want to pay.

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